Directed by Michael Polish / Written by Mark Polish and Michael Polish

“My son is perfectly
capable of sending his father into space.”

- Billy Bob
Thornton from THE ASTRONAUT FARMER

I have always been a fan of Gary Larson’s THE FAR
SIDE newspaper cartoon strips. They had a sort of exuberant, wickedly
droll, and zany outlandishness to them. You kind of laughed at their sheer
silliness.

They took many pre-conceived ideas and concepts, rigidly
tipped them upside down on their heads, and held them up for riotous
laughs. My favourites include one that showed God rubbing what appears to be
silly putty with the caption “GOD MAKES SNAKES” (his speech balloon says,
“Gosh, these things are easy!”). I also appreciated one that showed the
crew of the Starship Enterprise seeing a floating head on their view screen
with the caption “Kirk and the Enterprise are shocked when they encounter
the floating visage of Zsa Zsa Gabor.”

The poster for THE ASTRONAUT FARMER kind of reminded me of
the spirit of Larson’s comic strips…at least in terms of overall tonality.
It displays a man in a space suit riding a horse in front of his
farm. If it was a FAR SIDE comic its caption could have easily stated
"Buzz Aldrin feebly attempts to fulfill a lifelong dream by launching himself
into space via his horse."

Even the story for the film could have easily been the fixture of one of his daily
strips. It sure is one hum-dinger of a narrative. It is one thing for a father
to engage in a bit of middle aged soul searching by wanting to recapture
past glory by gunning for and ultimately achieving a lifelong dream.
Some
men have modest aims. I know of one friend whose father desperately yearned
to take up sky diving and – with the support of his wife and kids – he finally
saw his wishes taken to successful fruition.

The father/husband figure in THE ASTRONAUT
FARMER has much loftier aims. He simply wants to convert his barn into
a missile silo, build a rocket, mortgage his house and farm six times over
to the point of absolute bankruptcy, risk financial ruin for his wife and
kids, and fly himself into outer space.

Oooookay.

I have never seen such a crazy cinematic
family in my relative young filmgoing life. And I do mean crazy in
the literal sense. Charlie Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), the film’s main character, most
certainly would have to be nuttier than a fruitcake. He was once a college
graduate in aerospace engineering who dreamed of flight all his life. He
trained on experimental fighter aircrafts, but really set his hopes for
becoming an astronaut during the space race. Due to an unforeseen personal
setback, he was forced to resign from NASA and instead became a lonely
rancher. His heart is simply not in it. Like another film farmer,
Ray Kinsella from FIELD OF DREAMS, Charlie really becomes driven by his
obsessions. No, he does not plough through hundreds of valuable acres of
corn crop to erect a baseball field because the ghost of Shoeless Joe
Jackson told him to do so. No sir. In Charlie’s case, he builds a rocket
and hopes to fly into outer space.

Much like Kevin Costner in DREAMS, Charlie
has – pardon the pun – a family of such astronomical patience,
understanding, and commitment. Everyone in the town thinks Charlie is an
utter lunatic that has thrown common sense into the wind…and could ya blame
them? For most of his adult life he has slaved away at building
his space vessel for what he hopes is his first star trek. He has also
spent the literal farm at making his rocket. Every last penny that his
family has in their tight pockets has been put into his dream. Early in the
film the bank’s loan manager instructs him that if he does not give up his
silly, infantile plan, then he will loose his farm. Charlie, being a plucky
optimist, sees it otherwise. I mean, what’s to worry about?
He’s only on his sixth mortgage, and who cares about sending the two kids
off to college. Forget about their futures!

His family goes to remarkable levels to
support him, even in the midst of a town that thinks him to be as stupid as
Kinsella for putting up a baseball field in his corn crop for no apparent
reason. His wife, Audrey (played in yet another supportive wife role by
Virginia Madsen, playing the same variation of this character in recent
films likeFIREWALL
and THE NUMBER 23) thinks highly of her husband and
supports him through thick and thin. Not once does she call the doctor to
arrange for Charlie to be sent to the psychiatric ward in a straight jacket,
despite when the evidence seems to point to the fact that Charlie just maybe clinically insane. Maybe she thinks it's just a phase he’s going
through, but when he reveals to her that he is trying to make a bid for
buying several tons of premium grade fuel for his rocket, she then starts to
see things differently.

Charlie’s kids are idealistic to the point of
being a Capraesque wet dream. They also love dear old dad and never seem to question
his sanity or integrity. His oldest child, Shepherd (Max Thieriot) seems
like a bright kid with an affinity to science and math. He sort of places
his dad on a peculiar pedestal of hero worship, maybe because his dad wants
him to be in charge of mission control. Call me crazy, but last I checked,
NASA has never had any mission controllers who have just entered puberty.
But – gosh darnit – if I was Charlie's adolescent son and I was asked to be
his number two for his flight to space, I would think it was the coolest
thing ever.

Rightfully, the FAA gets wind of Charlie’s
inane plan and thinks it's pure hogwash. However, when they and the FBI
start to dig further and notice that – holy cow – this guy is looking to buy
thousands of pounds of rocket fuel, they start to take him seriously. They
first send FBI stooges to his ranch to investigate him, perhaps to see if he
is making a WMD on American soil. Charlie, with his aw, shucks
gumshum
and lighthearted spirit, laughs off their concerns. At one point he
tells them at a hearing, “If I was building a weapon of mass destruction,
you wouldn't be able to find it.” Check mate for Charles!

Yes, no inspirational film about a
down-on-his luck rancher that wants to spend his family’s collective assets
to build a rocket to go to outer space would not be complete without a
formal hearing of some kind. These types of movie hearings almost could be
called “Patch Adam Formals”, named after ridiculous film of the same name.
You know, the type of hearing where the "hero" of the film has to explain his
actions and their validity to a group of administrative heads that are
woefully painted as villains for challenging the hero’s shaky motives. It always
kind of rubs me the wrong way when films like this take characters that have
every right in the world to oppose the so-called hero’s choices and make
them look like heels.
Usually, their opposition makes perfect sense, but in a movie they are
dastardly, unscrupulous, and uncaring A-holes because – for cripe’s sake –
they are standing in front of the hero’s dreams. For crying out loud,
maybe then don't want him to blow himself up.

J.K. Simmons is cast as the FAA head and – at
seemingly every moment – he tells Charlie and the public that there are laws
that prohibit citizens from making rockets and going to space. Furthermore,
NASA has people that have trained for years and have experience to go into
space. But, c’mon, Charlie has a dream and they are stepping on it. In a
speech he gives near the end of the hearing, Charlie steps up to the board
and in pure, Patch Adams-ian fashion, says that – yeah – there are laws,
but how can you stop individualism and one man’s lifelong dream of going to
space? Well, the board tells him that they will make up their mind in 60
days. Oh no, but Charlie’s farm will go into foreclosure in 30!! Geez,
good thing Charlie was not wanting to launch his ship into space in 30 days
to dock with a dangerous asteroid that was on a collision course with
earth. Actually, wait a tick, Thornton had his hand already in a film like that
called ARMAGEDDON.

There are even other moments of sheer,
unbridled incredulity that made me laugh. Bruce Willis (oddly enough,
in an uncredited cameo) shows up in the film as a former shuttle pilot that
comes to Charlie’s farm to find out what the hell he’s really up to. Yet,
when Charlie takes him to his barn and shows him the rocket, Willis stares
in complete awe and giggles like a schoolgirl and the sight. Does he
immediately call the Feds to report on this nut job, or does he try to drag
Charlie away to the Lonnie bin? No. After a few beers and talking with
Charlie, he kind of develops some strong respect for his limitless drive.
Yup. Sure. Uh-huh.

Even wackier is one sly moment when J.K. Simmons
quietly tells Charlie that he will never fly his rocket because – if he did
– then he would have the collective arsenal of the US government pointed
straight at his farm. Charlie’s lawyer said that the FAA head was
bluffing…but was he? Last, but not least, the film journeys towards a third
act that shows the hero see terrible defeat and then achieve ultimate
victory in a manner that will truly have audience members want to not only admit Charlie, but his
entire family to the psyche ward.

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER is one the strangest
films that I have seen. On one level, is sort of typical of most
inspirational films by following its conventions to the letter though and through. It has the driven hero, a family that
supports him no matter what, and a group that wants to boycott his dreams,
only to be overcome in the end by the hero. In this way, the film is
hopelessly predictable. I guess the overall storyline is kind of fresh, in
a warped, reality defying kind of way, and it sort of combinesROCKY
with FIELD OF DREAMS
with sprinkles of Capra put in for good measure. You most certainly have to
suspend your disbelief while watching a film like this, but the premise of
it makes it very, very difficult to do so. I guess there is too much
dark irony in THE ASTRONAUT FARMER. Sure, Charlie is a man of perseverance
and guileless courage and drive, but in the end, he’s inescapably a
nutcase. The fact that his family is also so universally accepting of his
ridiculous scheme is even tougher to swallow.

If anything, the film is marginally redeemed
by a decent performance by Billy Bob Thornton, who thankfully underplays the
role to not accentuate the sheer absurdity of it. It’s also nice to see the
actor play a nice and affable character after a string of hit-or-miss films
where he plays an amoral S.O.B. (like inSCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS, BAD NEWS
BEARS, and BAD SANTA). His effortless charm and low-key appeal hear help to
establish our willingness to root him on, even when his ultimate quest is
beyond realistic. Madsen does what she can with the perfunctory wife role
when she supports her husband, has the obligatory spats with him, becomes
emotionally distant, and then later comes and stands by her man. J.K.
Simmons is characteristically vile and seedy in his performance.

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER emerges as 2007’s most
absurdist of films. It has a quirky and light-hearted appeal in its
story of a farmer that dreams of building a rocket to journey to the stars,
and its allegory on the spirit of individual dreams is noble. The film has
a nice performance by Billy Bob Thornton and some lovely production values
(the cinematography has a sun drenched, luminous kind bucolic beauty in many
scenes). However, the film is yet another in a long line of predictable
formula films that veers heavily into clichés and seriously suffers from an
overall lack of credibility. I guess I am willing to buy into a fairy tale
of a farmer that makes a ball diamond in his cornfield so that the ghost of MLB’s past can come to play. Really…I do. But, there is just something
about a man that wants to put his family into bankruptcy and provoke the
Federal Government into attacking him by building a rocket in his barn so he
can launch
himself into space that’s…well…insane. There is nothing wrong with
having a dream, but what if it can lead to your own demise and destruction?
What’s the point? Alas, in films like this its characters worship the
so-called hero when they should be forcing him against his will to get
therapy.